Ecology of the Deva

[Belorin]

This was exceedingly cool, if only because it's about time somebody quoted the Buddha in a D&D work.

This bit intrigues me though:

Whatever the case with the body, a deva’s soul doesn’t go to the Shadowfell like the souls of other mortals do. Instead, the soul stays in the world where it is bound by the ancient primal pact. The soul undergoes the “bodiless dreaming,” as devas call the period between incarnations. During this time, the soul wanders the spirit realm of the world, and some claim it experiences up to an entire lifetime in that ephemeral region of time and space. What the soul does in the spirit realm is a mystery, but the few revelations that exist suggest that the deva acts as a powerful ancestor spirit and caretaker of the world even in this in-between space.​

Is this spirit realm supposed to be the Feywild? Or something different? A part of the 4E cosmology that hasn't been seen until now?

No, it's simply the primal plane where all the spirits reside, the world the PC's live in, but invisible to them.


Bel

 

[yesnomu]

Tiny nitpick: The rakshasa's hands are wrong; that position is one a human could assume. (try it yourself!) The thumb should be on the other side. Obviously this'll be hard to correct in the final version, though...

EDIT: I wonder if my DM would let my tiefling take that Deva Heritage feat?

 

[Pour]

I liked the article quite a bit and I remember from NYCC that the dev team present was rather proud of them and the relationship with Rakshasas. I find the added Indian flavor and the reincarnation concept fresh in D&D terms, but also very adaptable and reskinnable, which has always been my favorite part of 4e.

 

[Mengu]

I've already written a good bit of fluff for devas in my game, and fortunately most of it seems to coincide nicely with the article, so I'll end up stealing quite a few sections from the article.

Battle Intuition is typically going to be better than Improved Initiative for most devas. I can see a lot of devas picking this up, and deva wizards retraining their Improved Initiative for Battle Intuition.

Deva Heritage seems pretty fantastic for the already high defense Avenger.

 

[Rechan]

I haven't read the article, but just wanted to share a deva-related idea I had recently.

Instead of Deva reincarnation meaning that they appear, fully adult, fully formed, immediate upon death, the deva are just divine sparks with memories attached.

So when a Deva reincarnates - it selects a mortal who is worthy, who needs it at that time, and then it possesses the chosen. The Chosen's personality isn't erased, but it's meshed with the Deva. And the Deva selects a Chosen that coincides with its own self (as opposed to picking someone diametrically opposite to it).

Deva aren't a race in and of themselves, but a spiritual symbiote. Thus you will have deva that have the physical traits of other races - scales and draconic features of dragonborn, squat frames of dwarves, horns and tails of tieflings - that are still deva.

Yes, I am totally ripping off Exalted here.

 

[Cadfan]

The initiative boosting feat is startlingly good for an Invoker.

 

[Hawke]

I wish there was more art in the article. Combined with the lack of devas in Arcane Power's art (I didn't see any!) I'm finding it hard finding the exact style that one of my players has in mind which is kind of close to this one.

In other musings, I wonder if a spirit world is that plane someone was finishing up that was mentioned and speculated about. It seems natural... I just finished Avatar Season 2 (s1 is on netflix ondemand, check it out if you haven't seen it for some great inspiration) and there's a lot of travels to the spirit world that are extremely frightening.

 

[TerraDave]

Too long, by about 2 pages, for what it was.

The fluff always seems to be to little or too much with 4E.

Definite problem of fluff distribtution.

 

[Zaukrie]

Just read it while on a call at work.

I completely disagree with Dave, it was not too long. That was a great article. If anything, some fluff on the seer and claw would have been helpful. That is where the fluff ratio is off, frankly.

Great stuff. I can see how to weave this into my campaign.

 

[RangerWickett]

Let's see, Battlestar Galactica had reincarnating Cylons, and the soundtrack included a lot of Indian influence. Sadly, I don't think a near-anorexic deva in a red dress would be quite as popular as Tricia Helfer.